Carl Sagan, the turtleneck-sporting astrophysicist from Cornell, was the greatest communicator of science of his generation. Not only did he publish hundreds of scientific papers and was instrumental in putting together that golden record on the Voyager spacecrafts but he also wrote twenty critically praised best sellers on science, appeared regularly on the Tonight Show, and even had a catch phrase — “billions and billions.” But Sagan is perhaps best known for his landmark 1980 series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage(watch it here). He took viewers through a tour of the universe, showing them things from the mind-boggling big to the infinitesimally small and everything in between. The show proved to be a huge hit; close to a half-billion people tuned in worldwide.

Even before the reboot of Cosmos premiered on FOX in March, Neil deGrasse Tyson – who hosts the show – was already seen as Sagan’s successor. Not only does he serve as the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and was instrumental in kicking Pluto out of the brotherhood of planets, but he also authored numerous books, appears regularly on The Daily Show, and frequently hosts AMAs on Reddit. He’s also one of America’s most vocal defenders of science at a time, unlike Sagan’s heyday, when Creationism, climate change denial, and anti-vaccination hysteria seem to be making inroads in our culture.

Anyone who saw Tyson’s heart felt tribute to Sagan at the beginning of the first episode of Cosmos knows that Sagan’s influence on his younger counterpart extended much further than his media appearances. It was personal. In 1975, Sagan, who was already famous at that time, was so impressed by Tyson’s college application that he personally reached out to him, hoping to convince the high school student to attend Cornell. He even offered to personally show Tyson around his lab.

Thanks for your letter and most interesting resume. I was especially glad to see that, for a career in astronomy, you intend to do your undergraduate work in physics. In this way, you will acquire the essential tools for a wide range of subsequent astronomical endeavors.

I would guess from your resume that your interests in astronomy are sufficiently deep and your mathematical and physical background sufficiently strong that we could probably engage you in real astronomical research during your undergraduate career here, if the possibility interests you. For example, we hope to be bringing back to Ithaca in late calendar year 1976 an enormous array of Viking data on Mars both from the orbiters and from the landers.

I would be delighted to meet with you when you visit Ithaca. Please try and give as much advance notice of the date as you can because my travel schedule is quite hectic right now and I really would like to be in Ithaca when you drop by.

With all good wishes,

Carl Sagan

Tyson was deeply moved by Sagan’s kindness and sincerity. He did venture out to Ithaca from the Bronx on a snowy afternoon. As Tyson recalled years later, “I thought to myself, who am I? I’m just some high school kid.” In the end, Sagan’s personal plea wasn’t quite enough to convince young Tyson to attend his school. As you can read in his response below, dated April 30, 1976, Tyson decided to go to Harvard.

Dear Prof. Sagan

Thank you for your offer concerning the Viking Missions. After long thought and decision making I have chosen to attend Harvard University this September. I chose it not simply because of its “valuable” name but because they have a larger astronomy department in addition to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, so while I am majoring in physics I will have more surrounding me in the way of on-going research in astronomy.

I want to say that I did enjoy meeting you and I am very grateful for your hospitality and the time you spent with me while at Cornell. I will throughout my undergraduate years keep you informed on any noteworthy news concerning astronomy-related work that I’m involved in. I do plan to apply again for the Viking Internship next summer.

Thanks again

Neil D. Tyson

You can see Tyson talk about his afternoon with Sagan. 40 years later, he still seems incredulous that it happened.

Incidentally, Carl Sagan never said “billions and billions”. That came from one of Carson’s monologues. Sagan took it good-naturedly, as was his wont, but he never said it. That’s just another urban legend that has been elevated into “fact” in the age of Wikipedia.

As catchphrases go, however, Sagan actually DID say something over and over that was just as distinctive, and I would argue, just as funny as “billions and billions”. When discussing some aspect of science that was particularly unusual or difficult to get one’s mind around, he would give a one-sentence summation of what he’d just described, prefaced by the phrase “How can it be …”, dragging out the “how” in round, almost Canadian-like tones, and crashing down on the “be” with a deep, breathy and very sudden stop. He does it fairly often in the original Cosmos series, if you want to check it out, but he used to do it all the time.

Of course, if you actually do check out the original Cosmos series looking for “how can it be …” you will also take note of the fact that nowhere in the 10 hours does he say “billions and billions”.

I suspect the unsigned copy of the above letter is a file copy kept by the admissions department of from the office files of Prof. Sagan.

I have no problem believing Prof. Tyson was the beneficiary of Sagan’s pay-it-forward contribution to life, education and science. Tyson is a worthy peer of Sagan and hopefully those lives he touches will also pay-it-forward.

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Open Culture editor Dan Colman scours the web for the best educational media. He finds the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & movies you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.